Butternut Squash Swirl Ice Cream

Do you like to cheat? Admit it. Sometimes you do. It’s okay, I like cheating sometimes too.

As I type up this recipe, I feel like I am cheating. I usually make everything from scratch. You know, I make my own pasta, my own bread and even my own cheese! So posting an ice cream recipe where I don’t actually make the ice cream feels naughty–but in a good way! You know why, because I got to eat this dessert that much sooner. Yum!

Yield:
4 servings

Total Time

1 hour, 15 minutes

Main Ingredient:

Butternut Squash

Recipe Type:

Ice Cream

1. Place a small baking dish in the freezer (best if you do this the night before) and remove 1 pint of vanilla bean ice cream so that it begins to soften.

2. If you haven’t already made the Caramelized Butternut Squash, go do that now! However, if you are making the puree as the same time as this ice cream, give it some time to cool before working it into the ice cream or you are going to have one hot mess.

3. Take 2 cups of Caramelized Butternut Squash and puree it until it is very, very smooth. Smooth is important here for a few reasons. One, if you (or whomever you are treating to this wonderful recipe) has issues with texture, you are not going to want frozen squash chunks in your ice cream. Secondly, the smoother you have the puree, the easier it will be to work with in step 5.

4. Remove the baking dish from the freezer and spread the softened ice cream throughout.

5. Spread the pureed squash over the top. Now, don’t worry about how this looks because you are going to scoop it all out with an ice cream scoop. The messier it is, the more butternut squash you will have swirled within your ice cream. My only advice is that if you spread a thin layer over the whole top, make sure it is super thin. Ideally, if you have a pastry bag to draw out lines with…that would work best.

7. Cover the baking dish and place it back in the freezer for at least an hour.

8. Scoop out the ice cream and serve. I suggest some chopped pistachio nuts to top it with. It just looks amazing that way. You could also top it with some of my Bourbon Caramel Sauce and that would not suck at all–trust me!